Hello, I have been studying the theology of communion since the recent discussion between Gavin Ortland and Dr. Craig brought to light the strangeness

of what is meant by Calvin's spiritual presence.

As a parallel, I have tried understanding what it means for the Holy Spirit to be spiritually

present in us.

I think we can rule out that it means he is physically or spatially present in us.

It's probably a distraction to think about the Spirit spatially present in us. It's probably a distraction to think about the

spirit being temporally present in us, perhaps mental presence. But what would that mean?

I wonder if the Holy Spirit is in you is simply a metaphor for the fact that the Christian is

influenced by the person of the Spirit and his desires, and not merely our own desires.

What do you think? What does it mean that the spirit is in us? If it ends up being more than just a

metaphor, I wonder if that could shed light on Calvin's spiritual presence in the Eucharist.

Thanks to God for you and all those that help answering these questions.

Dean, United States.

When I began volume five of my systematic philosophical theology on the doctrine of the church,

I thought that the subject of the sacraments would be, frankly, boring.

Was I wrong? It has proved to be incredibly fascinating and thought-provoking. Your excellent question, Dean, is an example of the interesting questions

raised by the Lord's Supper.

Given Calvin's view that the resurrection body of Jesus is a physical body of flesh and bones, the idea that we eat it spiritually does seem to me either to collapse into Olegh Zwingli's figurative view or to be

incoherent when taken literally. Calvin himself made it pretty clear what he meant by eating

Christ's flesh spiritually. The central idea of Calvin's view is that during the Lord's supper,

we are somehow transported by the Holy Spirit's action to heaven,

where we feed upon Christ's body and blood.

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